Image: . Photo: Courtesy of Adam Radosavljevic from Pixabay.
MC10, Inc., the company that developed the BioStamp nPoint® System, Northwestern University’s Center for Bio-Integrated Electronics (CBIE), the Institute for Innovations in Developmental Sciences (DevSci), an academic institute focusing on early life mechanisms of lifespan health and disease, and the Stanley Manne Children’s Research Institute at Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago, announced today a collaboration to study the impact of prenatal stress on maternal and infant health, a project of the Manne Research Institute Perinatal Origins of Disease Strategic Research Initiative.
This collaboration bridges MC10’s expertise in wearable health solutions, DevSci’s leading-edge research on how the prenatal environment shapes early brain and behavioral development, and Lurie Children’s expertise in research at the maternal-fetal interface. Through this collaboration, DevSci and Lurie Children’s aim to improve children’s health and neurodevelopment, by improving the health of the prenatal environment through the “Promoting Healthy Brain Project” effort. Northwestern and Lurie Children’s investigators and data scientists will use MC10’s BioStamp nPoint System to measure maternal heart rate, activity, and heart rate variability along with maternal reports of stress collected via text messaging to guide the delivery of tailored stress reduction intervention to improve maternal health and well-being and infant outcomes. The effects of this intervention will be traced in relation to infant brain and behavioral development from birth, including natural sleep MRI scans conducted in DevSci’s neurodevelopmental core.
“This study underscores the unmet need for the comfort and seamless wear of BioStamp sensors; we are excited to be a part of this groundbreaking research,” said Dr. Arthur Combs MD, Chief Medical Officer of MC10.
MC10 and Northwestern University’s Center for Bio-Integrated Electronics recently collaborated on a clinical feasibility study using first-generation BioStamp technology to monitor motor symptoms of Parkinson’s Disease, a degenerative disease of the central nervous system. The study, “Wearable sensors for Parkinson’s disease: which data are worth collecting for training symptom detection models,” was conducted by Prof. Roozbeh Ghaffari and Prof. John A. Rogers of Northwestern University’s Center for Bio-Integrated Electronics and Dr. Arun Jayaraman of the AbilityLab of Chicago. This study provided valuable insights that led to the development of the FDA-cleared BioStamp nPoint System. Prof. John Rogers and Prof. Roozbeh Ghaffari are co-founders of MC10, Inc., and their research led to the development of the BioStamp platform.
“The small, form-factor and data analytic capabilities of the BioStamp sensor minimize the burden on pregnant mothers and allow us, for the first time, to utilize biometric information to guide real-world intervention in the home that might otherwise only be available in a clinic setting. This capability has enabled true scientific leaps, with this first study of its kind to utilize technology for prenatal health promotion designed to improve children’s brain and behavioral health even before they are born,” commented Dr. Lauren S. Wakschlag, Principal Investigator of the Promoting Healthy Brain Project and director of the DevSci Institute at Northwestern University.
The 510(k)-cleared BioStamp nPoint System enables continuous collection of physiological data and is optimized for clinical trials deployment in-home and in-clinic. The system reports vital signs, activity and postural classifications and a suite of sleep metrics. The BioStamp nPoint System is in use today by numerous pharmaceutical companies and in academic research across several therapeutic areas.
“We are excited to see how this study transforms our approaches to optimizing newborn and childhood health, through helping mothers reduce their stress levels during pregnancy. Novel wearable technologies like the BioStamp System will also give us opportunities to study the mediating role of the placenta in reducing the effects of stress on brain development,” commented Dr. Karen Mestan, Director of the Manne Research Institute Perinatal Origins of Disease Strategic Research Initiative.
Source: Company Press Release